Revelations
by Cha Oseye Tempest Thrain
Summary: From the same universe that brought you 'Life Support' and 'Mirror, Mirror' comes another delving into the dark-side of Trip. 'R' for language. ReligiousSpiritual themes included, a la Mirror, Mirror.
1. Apocalypse

Disclaimer: I do not own _Enterprise_ or any of its characters

Author's note: Though this is – technically – a sequel to 'Life Support' and 'Mirror, Mirror,' you _can_ read this without reading the other two. They will – however – give you a little bit of background on Toby and Kaci (who is not in this chapter, but will be appearing), and their relationship to Trip (no… it's not that kind of relationship…either one of them). Those of you who _have_ read the other two will notice some **stylistic changes**: I now have Toby speaking directly, instead of in _brackets_. However, this is because she is gaining practice at being dead – and there are sections from her point of view, and I wanted to be able to delineate her thoughts from her speech.

A/N 2: The timeline of this is after the third season… so it has to be an alternate universe… and yes, I do know I have two different eye colour descriptions for Toby.

**_Revelations_**

**Chapter 1: Apocalypse**

"Whether I go, or whether I stay, right now depends on, whatever you say…"

– Martina McBride

"I wanna know where my confidence went, one day it all disappeared…"

– Blue Rodeo

_Personal Log: Charles Tucker III_

_Sometimes I wonder if there are such things as curses, and whether or not I'm under one. This past year has brought to light things that have destroyed the underpinnings of everything I have ever believed in. I've learned some disturbing things about myself and my family… or maybe it's just things I've always known but have never been willing to acknowledge. This is a hell of a way to spend your birthday… wondering how sane you really are… but _some_ things aren't giving me a choice. Sometimes reality is just a pain in the ass._

"Oh. One of the fundamental secrets of the universe… something that mankind has been trying to figure out since he first burned himself on a hot spark and imagined a god – Sorry, God… didn't mean it like that – you have been given proof, that there really _is_ something beyond the mortal body… some sort of consciousness that endures… and it's just a 'pain in the ass.'" The red-headed dead girl chewed on a non-corporeal nail and sulked. Just who did he think he was, anyway? "Pain in the ass." She felt no qualms about listening to a supposedly private journal… after all, she and Trip shared everything. Toys, clothing, deepest dark fears… hell, even the measles. There were probably _still_ doctors trying to figure that one out: how two otherwise healthy children contracted a disease they'd supposedly been inoculated against. But now…

"'Go away, Toby'" she mocked. "'You're in the way, Toby.' 'You're complicating my life, Toby…' why don't you just say 'I wish you were dead, Toby.' and be done with it? _I'm_ not the one who brought me here… I'm not the one with all the angsty 'I'll never forgive myself,' type problems…" It was just… "You're my best friend. I mean, we're kindred souls of a type only seen in the rarest of circumstances. But oh, no… just because you've met some chickie girl that you seem to think you're supposed to fall in love with… suddenly _I'm_ the one that's gotta go. Well remember what happened last time you did that? _Huh?_ That's when I ended _up_ never getting past the age of fifteen." It wasn't like this T'Pol chick was right for him, anyway. Toby could tell just by the way he got so unsure of himself every time he was around her.

"Inadequacy issues are not a good foundation for a healthy relationship." And this chick _did_ do that to him… oh, everybody else thought it was just wonderful… two intelligent good-looking people hooking up, but Toby knew better. T'Pol wasn't only Vulcan-level smart… "which still isn't up to my level, of course…" She had this aura about her that _commanded_ respect… and Trip tended to be very sensitive to those kinds of things.

"And to think I almost had you broken of that habit." Everybody around here thought that Trip was a rebel… but he wasn't – not deep, deep down in his soul. There he was still just a scared little boy, afraid of getting in trouble, afraid to disappoint. No matter how much he denied it, he wanted everybody to like him – wanted everybody to be his friend.

There was that other thing, too. _Chickie__-babe is _really_ bad for him there._ Of course he'd never see it, never admit it. And if Toby told him the awful truth… _he wouldn't exactly trust me as much._ She chewed her nail a little more, then made a decision.

Trip lay flat on the floor while T'Pol straddled his back, digging strong fingers into his shoulders.

"I'm bored." Toby noted with satisfaction the sudden flinch at her appearance.

"Is there a problem?" T'Pol sounded almost concerned, like she might be worried about hurting him or something.

"Just a pain. I ignore it, and it'll go away."

"That rarely works," T'Pol released him. "Perhaps we should finish this some other…"

"Trust me." Toby caught the deep irritation in Trip's tone. "Ignoring it's the only thing that works." The look in his eyes echoed the tone of his voice.

"Fine, then. I'm gone." She glared back at him.

"Good." He closed his eyes and turned away.

"No, Trip. _For_ good. You don't want me around… I'm gone. 'S the way it works, buddy… though I guess _that's_ not the case anymore." She couldn't keep the sound of crying out of her voice – _but I don't think I've ever had a life as a Vulcan._

"Enjoy yourself." He murmured it like he didn't believe her… or maybe he really did want her out of his life.

"Fuck you." After all these years…_ you'd think, being dead, it wouldn't hurt this much_. She turned away and pulled in on herself, then was gone.

!!!!!

"Is it just me or did…" No… it wasn't warmer in here, tendrils of ice wrapped around his spine instead. "T…" he stopped himself just in time, before T'Pol could think he was crazy. _But maybe I am_. "T'Pol… what exactly are you working on?" He prayed that she'd tell him it was some sort of emotional release spot or something… anything to explain the sudden depression, the emptiness that suddenly crashed into him.

"I am merely releasing some tension from your muscles… why?"

He took a deep, shaky breath. "Oh, no. Oh, no, no, nonono. We better stop, now… there's something I want to check on."

"Trip?" He could hear the puzzlement in her voice, but didn't have time to explain. She stood up and he scrambled to his feet and grabbed his shirt. "I hope I haven't done something stupid… I'm sorry… I gotta go." He ran for the door, feeling the panic rise. _Not again…__ I didn't mean it… I didn't mean…_ He raced down the corridor to his own quarters, fuming impatiently as the door took its microseconds to open.

"Toby?" He felt tears begin to roll down his cheeks. "Toby, I didn't mean it like that…" Bad enough to lose Elizabeth… _but this one _is_ my fault. It always is_. She'd followed through, though… emptiness wasn't the word… he was _alone_. He caught sight of something on the floor, and his knees gave way completely. "I'm sorry, Toby… that isn't how I meant it." He crawled forward, ignoring the pain as shards of glass from the shattered picture frame dug into his palms. He reached forward with shaking fingers to touch the picture itself – now shredded almost beyond recognition. Here and there he identified a bit of blond hair, or a flash of red – one small fragment contained an almost entire purple iris, staring out at him accusingly now.

He raked together what he could, and sat down to try to piece it back together. Wasn't there an ancient superstition about that? That a picture contained a piece of the subject's soul? Maybe if he could piece this back together he could fix it… wasn't that an engineer's job? Fixing things?

The com rang, but he ignored it. He had all the pieces now… he just had to get them in the right places… get them to fit… he fought down the shivers and kept going… it would just take some time. He set up a magnifying glass and pulled out a pair of microtweezers, and began to sort out the glass from fragments of picture.

The door hissed open behind him, but he didn't look up. He almost had a face here now… freckles and a pug nose… a green eye taking shape…

"Trip?" Jon's voice, but it might as well be background.

_You're not my best friend, no matter what I might have said. I've only got one best friend… I've got to get her back… I have to fix…_

"Trip… you were due on the bridge two hours ago. I've been comming you… Trip?" He could sense Jon looming over him, but didn't acknowledge his captain's presence.

"What are you doing… what happened to your hands? How long have you been sitting here?"

Not long enough… he didn't have it together yet. "I gotta fix this." He felt a slight pressure on his wrists as Jon lifted his hands away from the desk.

"Trip. It's a picture. And you're hurt."

"I gotta _fix_ this." He struck out blindly, connected with flesh. The captain let him go and he set back to work, squinting to match a tiny set of ragged edges.

"I'm calling Phlox."

"Whatever." Not a good answer to give a commanding officer… but some things were more important than a career. Hot tears cascaded down his cheeks again. How could he explain… this was insanity, yet it was truth. _Elizabeth and I were close… but even Baby Sister didn't share my soul like Toby. And _I_ didn't make Elizabeth go away… I didn't kill her _twice. He glanced up and caught his reflection in the desk console. An unfamiliar shade stared back – not even half a person.

_Even the better part of me is gone…_ not from this,_ but ever since_… ever since Sim, he'd lost that edge… that nasty, driving force. _My other self_. The side of him that took care of him… that made him take care of himself.

The door hissed open again.

"He's burning up." It had to be Phlox, then – why detail a sickness to anyone other than a doctor? Looking down, he saw _why_ Archer noticed a fever – plain as day and twice as recognisable. Little red spots decorated his skin, multiplying as he watched, but if they itched, he didn't feel them.

_But who'm I supposed to give it to now?_ He couldn't keep crying like this – the tears were getting in the way of his work. He'd just about put a piece of one of his eyes in with hers – no way she deserved an ignominy like that. He tried to block out the noises behind him; they were distracting him. He heard a single word: 'violent,' then managed to fade it out completely. _If I ignore it, it'll go away… friends always go away when you ignore them…and I'm not a good person to be having friends anyway._ He didn't deserve friends… just look at what he did to them. _Someone I owe my life to… someone who'd sacrifice anything for me… who _gave_ me the life I've got to start with… how could I do that to her?_ If it weren't for Toby, he wouldn't be here – he would never have considered Starfleet, would never have come out of his shell enough to do anything. _I'd be an anonymous clerk somewhere… or probably be dead._ All those times he'd come so close to killing himself, and who had stepped in to stop him? He had a feeling she wouldn't now, though… and why should she? He didn't deserve to live – but he didn't deserve the privilege of being dead either. _I have no right to follow her_. He felt something cold press against his neck, heard a slight hiss, then nothing more.

!!!!!

"I can't explain it, Captain." Phlox repeated his scans for the third time, unable to find any errors, and forced to accept the impossible.

"_What_ is it?" Trip looked horrible – pale underneath a near blanket of red pustules. _I don't think I've ever seen him this bad_. Even when things had been bad enough to justify Sim – Archer still didn't regret that… Trip was worth it – he'd never looked so _frail_.

"Measles. This should be impossible… because my information shows that Commander Tucker's inoculations are up to date... and he appears to have had it once before, which confers immunity. Not only that, but this appears to be a strange mutation in the virus: it's highly virulent but non-contagious. I'd still like to place him in quarantine… it could mutate again after all, and we don't want an epidemic. I also need to study this virus further to work on a vaccine. It would be helpful to know how he contracted it in the first place… how did you say he injured himself?"

"There was glass on the floor of his quarters." Jon stared at his friend's hands and the small cuts that covered them. "I think it was from the picture frame… he needed to fix that picture, Doctor. He was obsessive about it."

"I noticed." Phlox fussed over his patient, drawing some blood and adjusting the blanket. "Do you know what it was a picture of?"

Jon shook his head. "I couldn't tell. I don't know all of the pictures he had… I don't think it was the one of Elizabeth… no, I remember seeing that one." He sighed and played distractedly with the curtain surrounding the biobed. "For such an outgoing, friendly guy he kept a lot of himself private." He smiled, sadly. "I didn't even know if Elizabeth was older or younger than him… not until after she died. I knew he _had_ a sister… but nothing more than that. And we'd known each other for ten years. It could have been a picture of anything – his nephew, maybe. As for how it got destroyed…" Maybe Trip shredded it in a fit of rage at something – but why? And how had he done such a thorough job? "I mean, you saw it, Phlox… it was practically confetti. And the way he went on about it…" No, if Trip had been that intent on destroying something, he'd never be that obsessed with putting it back together. _If he's _that_ thorough, he means to do it_. _But who would sneak into his quarters to destroy a picture?_ Surely not T'Pol… even with her occasional slips into emotion, Archer couldn't imagine her becoming that jealous or vindictive over anything. Someone else then? Someone who didn't like the budding relationship between the First Officer and the Chief Engineer, and who decided to make their feelings known? It wouldn't be the first time someone like Trip had picked up a stalker – but it seemed hard to imagine someone on this ship being that obsessed and unstable. _Aside from Trip, that is_. And Trip's obsessions were never with people… not in any kind of sexual sense. Obsessed with _helping_ people, maybe, but never with the people themselves.

"Perhaps you could obtain some samples of the glass for me, Captain. It's possible that the contagion originated there, and permeated his bloodstream through the cuts. Usually there's a longer incubation period… but, like I said, this strain is extremely virulent. So be exceedingly cautious, Captain."

"I will." The last thing he needed was to join Trip in quarantine. According to the monitors, the Southerner hung close to death – he barely breathed at all and his brainwaves functioned only at minimal levels. _Just enough to qualify you as alive, and nothing else_.

He turned to leave when every alarm on the bed sounded. Trip's heart raced out of control, and the brainscan jumped and danced manically.

_"Trip!"_ This couldn't be good…

"He's in a coma state, Captain… it's to be expected. Often when a patient is in such a condition the brain functions much like an extended REM state. Essentially, Commander Tucker is having a very intense dream."

Jon stared down at his best friend, as Trip's face flinched and twitched. "I wonder what he's dreaming about."


	2. Beginning Descent

Disclaimer: I do not own _Enterprise_ or any of its characters.

**Chapter 2: Beginning Descent**

… am I dead or am I living?

Too afraid to care, too afraid to know…

– Sting

I kept my distance

Wanted no part of this world

Of this hateful existence

The rot that this fate had unfurled

Lord, get me out of this world…

…A message from heaven

For the mighty that fell

And the wise men as well

Came a message from heaven

"Very sorry all… welcome to hell."

– Gowan

… don't close your eyes

God knows what lies behind them

don't turn out the light…

– Evanescence

He opened his eyes to a darkness as dense and cold as deep space. But he wasn't alone… he could sense something out there, watching him. Something… malevolent. Slowly his eyes adjusted… or maybe the scene did. It wasn't an improvement either way. He found himself in a scene out of a bad horror movie: a dark, leafless forest cast not in earthy, living browns and greens, but in bleached bone white, ash grey and coffin black. He shivered; fear soaking through him like a heavy rain. A full, bloody moon compressed things to two dimensions – the odd, changing shadows were both flat and endlessly deep.

_Where is this place?_ When had he left Enterprise?

He heard something behind him, a high pitched chattering. _IkIkIkIkIkIkIkIk_ He spun but saw nothing. Then bushes rattled from the other side.

_This is not good_. Reflexively he reached for a phase pistol, only to realise that he didn't have one. He wasn't in uniform either… just a light t-shirt and jeans, which gave little armouring against something that might want to harm him. _And I don't think that whoever's around here is inclined to be nice._

_IkIkIkIkIkIkIkIkIk_ He jumped – this time it sounded closer. He wished this _were_ a horror movie; he was versed well enough in the rules of horror to handle what might exist in the celluloid world… _but this is real_. Real enough, anyway – he perceived things with all five senses. He heard and saw, felt the ground beneath his feet, smelled the wet, rotting earth, and could even taste the acid in the back of his throat. Instinctively he knew that whatever harm came to him here would be real… even if this was some kind of dream.

_Should I care?_ After all, he'd failed. Did he even deserve to come out of this okay, or even alive? _Am I still alive?_ Maybe he wasn't – in rare cases, the disease could be fatal… _And I shouldn't have come down with it _once_, let alone twice_. If so… was this Hell itself, or merely Purgatory? Circumstances argued the former… after all, wasn't Purgatory reserved for souls with a chance of gaining entry into Heaven?

He let loose with a shuddering sigh as despair rose again. At this point Toby would be arguing with him about his Judeo-Christian centric perspective – _she_ was the one with the ultimate faith in God, yet he was the one who tended to take the narrow view. _Maybe that's why she can believe_. He couldn't believe the narrow view because too much evidence contradicted it… maybe being able to meld perspectives together made it easier.

_Well, I'm not staying here_. If he hadn't been kidnapped… if there hadn't been an accident… _then the rules don't apply._ No sense following search protocol if there wouldn't be a search. So… which direction then?

A howl in the distance settled it: whichever direction that thing _wasn't_. He headed off down the path, trying not to flinch at every little noise. He could sense something following him, however – tracking him. He began to run, even as he knew that it was stupid – that the worst thing to do with a predator was to give it a reason to chase.

He tripped and fell, landing hard on sharp rocks. Groaning, he scrambled to his feet and kept going, trying to ignore the new pains. He could sense the… thing growing closer. _It wants me… it's hungry, and it wants to feed on me._ He had no idea what tracked him, but knew that this was indeed a case of predator and prey, and that man was no longer on top of the food-chain. _Were we ever?_ _Or were we just mice pretending that we were smarter than the cat?_ He stifled a hysterical giggle and a sudden urge to start whistling. _I'm not going past the graveyard; I'm right in the middle of it_. Besides, he was well past the point of pretending not to be scared – the least observant of creatures could smell his terror now. And he knew – somehow – that what chased him was _very_ observant indeed.

He stumbled again, but this time managed to retain his footing. _It_ got closer though… he thought he could hear it panting behind him. _Or maybe that's just me_. He didn't look, though, looking back would only slow him down, and make it easier to fall. The forest grew thicker – skeletal limbs reached out for him, tearing at his clothing and his flesh. Twigs snapped under his feet like tiny bones – or maybe that's what they were; he didn't dare look. Something else squished beneath his shoes – the sound from it resembled the one when he accidentally stepped on a long dead rat. Toby had been there for that, too – she'd laughed like crazy until the smell hit. _And it clung, too._ His mother had burned the shoes and he'd practically lost a layer of skin trying to scrub the odour away. _And you made maggot jokes for weeks after that, girl. You even made a spaghetti sandwich to bring to school, just to gross me out_. It had worked, too… he hadn't been able to eat for a week.

The muck sucked at his feet, slowing him down. He struggled, then felt a shoe disappear. _To hell with it_. Gunk oozed through his sock and around his toes, chilling them. Pain came with the cold, but he kept going, limping as best he could. It was playing with him… it had to be, or it would have caught him by now. His knee twisted suddenly, and he fell, face first into the mud.

He came to under bright sunlight – humid and burning, like a summer in an Everglades swamp – he wasn't in that forest anymore The rot was stronger here… and mud had flooded his mouth. Spitting, he opened his eyes.

A bloated face stared back at him, one eye bulging from its socket as fluid pressures forced it beyond the bounds of the bone. He could see that it had once been purple – an odd match for the blood and muck matted red hair that framed… he gasped, sucking muck and debris down his throat.

_Oh, God…_ He'd never seen this, never actually seen her body, but – _I'm responsible…_ He vomited and choked, unable to tear his eyes away. Then she reached for him, catching his hair in her putrid fingers.

"Toby, please… I'm sorry."

She didn't answer, just pulled him closer, down more into the murky ditchwater. He fought to get away, but she proved too strong for him. Then the water closed over his head, and he gave up.

!!!!

"Doctor!" Jon sat up suddenly as alarms sounded again – when had he fallen into a doze? Trip jerked and seemed to choke, and Phlox dashed over.

"He's vomiting. Turn him on his side before he can aspirate it into his lungs." Phlox didn't even wait to finish his explanation before lifting Trip's shoulders and rolling him to his side. Dark liquid spilled from Trip's mouth – foul smelling and filled with bits of odd debris.

Jon flinched… whatever this was, it smelled like rotting flesh. "Why do I think that's not breakfast?" He hoped it didn't sound as flippant to Phlox's ears as it did to his own. _But I'm worried_. He'd come down here to watch over Trip – rationalising that one best friend deserved as much attention as another, and hadn't he sat vigil when Porthos grew ill? He'd convinced Phlox to let him sit close – if Trip wasn't contagious, then there'd be no harm in it. As for best friends… Porthos had somehow escaped Jon's quarters and now watched concernedly from the bottom of Trip's bed. _It's like you know there's a problem too, don't you?_ And as much as Jon hated to admit it, sometimes his dog preferred the company of the engineer to that of his master. "He sneaks you cheese, doesn't he?" He didn't realise he'd murmured aloud until Porthos turned to look at him.

"I certainly hope not, Captain." Jon couldn't be sure which question Phlox was answering, but wasn't sure he cared. "I will have this substance analysed. As far as I can tell it's been a while since Commander Tucker last ate… his stomach should have been empty."

"Then how?" Jon stared at the brown-black stain on the pillow. It looked like… _sewage._ "I just can't see him eating anything like that… and I know he just threw it up… but there should be _something_ that looks like food in there." Instead, it appeared that a few small bugs still swam in the liquid – and as strange as Trip's tastes could be at times, he wasn't in the habit of eating live insects.

Phlox eased Trip back down, now that the vomiting seemed to have passed. "I have no idea," he admitted. "This is not a phenomenon I am familiar with. There were no viral traces on the glass samples you brought me, and so far, no one else on board the ship has reported any symptoms." He ran a scanner over the substance and frowned. "I will have to do a more detailed analysis. According to this, Mr. Tucker has just vomited up a combination of common earth soils, water, and various organic substances – including human DNA from a foreign source. I will attempt to determine where it came from, but as I mentioned, this is – as you humans say – a new one on me."

"Me too," Jon watched as Trip seemed to slip into a deeper level of sleep. It tied into the picture somehow – that much he knew. "Let me know what you find out, Doctor. There's something I need to work on… keep me informed as to any changes in his condition."

"Understood, captain," Phlox turned to work on his newest puzzle and Jon left for one of his own.

!!!!

A message waited in the communications queue – its surface text and address appeared quite innocuous Indeed, it was designed to look that way. But beneath a friendly letter home lurked something far more dangerous, far more incendiary. Something else skipped past, scented it, and stopped to take a closer look. And then became very, very angry.

!!!!

Strangely, he could still breathe, even though Toby had pulled him completely under. She'd vanished, too… leaving him alone again and back in the dead forest. A light shone in the distance and he forced himself to his feet and moved towards it. "Go into the light?" He sounded hysterical, even to himself. _And I'm used to me being hysterical._ But wasn't a light supposed to be a good thing? Didn't a light mean people… or at least _some_ sign of civilisation and comfort? He hurried towards it, and finally saw what it was. _Thank you._

A tall, handsome man stood at a crossing of paths, holding a lantern. He smiled as Trip approached – an open, friendly smile. "Hello… you appear lost."

"Somewhat," Trip admitted. He relaxed, at least he wasn't alone in this place anymore. He smiled back, glad to finally have something to smile about. "Do you know your way around?"

"I know my way around many places." The man reached out a hand, and Trip shook it. The stranger's grip was warm and comforting. "Come… let's get you warm and dry."

"Gladly," he smiled further, the weariness taking hold now. Warm and dry… it sounded like heaven.

The man shifted his grip to Trip's elbow in a possessive grasp. "Excellent. I'm glad you agree."

Trip tried to pull away, suddenly uncertain. The stranger held him too tightly however – his grip seemed inhumanly strong. Too late, Trip remembered something that Toby once told him, one of their late-night treehouse discussions. _The Latin translation for Light-bearer –_ he looked over at the stranger again, and uncertainty turned to horror – _is Lucifer_.


	3. Continuing Downwards

Disclaimer: I don't own the Enterprise characters, and I certainly don't lay claim to the devil.

Author's note: Thank you to everyone who's been reading so far, and a special thank you to all my reviewers – especially Arim, Akin, and Rinne. And – as always – to my wonderful beta readers, gaianarchy and silvershadowfire, without whom I would be lost. In silvershadowfire's case, this is literally: she's seen the way I navigate, and has still managed to teach me how to find the shortcut.

**Chapter Three: Continuing Downwards**

I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.

Harry S. Truman (1884 - 1972), in _Look_, Apr. 3, 1956

Each of us bears his own Hell.

Virgil (70 BC - 19 BC), _Aeneid_

You'll get a fair trial followed by a first class hanging.

Judge Roy Bean

The Light-bearer pulled Trip along the path, seeming to enjoy Trip's attempts to escape. "I thought you said you wanted to come with me. 'Gladly,' wasn't it?"

"I changed my mind." Trip pulled and twisted again, to no avail. "I'll take my chances…"

"Yes, you will." Lucifer tightened his grip until Trip winced. "I've noticed that about you… you like to act and just take your chances, don't you? And if anyone gets hurt… well, it wasn't your fault… you couldn't predict everything."

"Not true." Wasn't another name for Lucifer 'Father of Lies?' "I take responsibility…"

"Yes, you will." Lucifer repeated. "You will take responsibility this time. Everybody does, eventually." They stopped, outside a small stone building. "Inside now…"

Trip planted his feet, but Lucifer jerked, and dropped him to his knees. "I do like a struggle… it makes things so much sweeter when you finally give in." He whispered in Trip's ear, his breath hot at it washed across the sensitive nerves.

"Go to hell." Trip scrunched his eyes shut and pulled away.

Lucifer laughed, a surprisingly gentle and sweet sound. "Oh, but we are… you're going to come with me. Don't worry, Trip, you won't be alone… you'll see plenty of familiar faces soon." He ran a hand over the back of Trip's head and neck. "Just wait…"

Trip shuddered. _Please… I'm sorry… it wasn't supposed to…_

"Sorry doesn't cut it now." Lucifer seemed able to read Trip's thoughts. "Everybody's sorry at this point. Now's too late for sorry… you should have thought of that sooner." He laughed again. "I _know_ it wasn't supposed to… but remember what road you're on. Good intentions?" He pulled Trip to his feet and shoved him forward.

Trip stumbled, and instinctively opened his eyes to a large, well-lit courtroom. _This is impossible_. The only building had been the small stone hut – there was no physical way it could hold this big a space.

"If there are more things on heaven and earth…" Lucifer grinned, proudly, "Just imagine what _I_ can achieve."

As Lucifer marched him up to the Defence table, Trip caught sight of the faces he'd been told to expect. They lined the jury box… Ensign Taylor, Charles – the cogenitor – Elizabeth, and even… his own face stared back at him: Sim.

"I will, of course, be your advocate… can you guess who will be working for _my_ side?"

Surely not… she'd never side against him, even here.

Lucifer sighed. "No, not her… though it would be interesting to arrange. A complete betrayal… destroy the both of you at once. But no… here he comes now."

Trip turned, and his stomach fell. _James_. Of course… this was a court of the dead… and who better to prosecute than his own brother? He watched James' movements, trying to gauge his brother's mood. _Are you up, or are you down? Or are you somewhere in between?_ Not that any of them would be advantageous… Up, and he'd be aggressive, maybe violent. Down, and he'd be bitter and resentful. Even in the middle… then he could be charming, more charming than even Trip could ever manage.

"Hey, there, Trip. Long time, no see. Of course, that was your choice… better to just _abandon_ your family, than try and actually be a member of it."

"You hurt my friends." Trip turned away. "I couldn't keep cleaning up after you."

"I was your _brother_, and I was _sick_. But you couldn't deal with that, so you took the easy way. I'll bet your friends don't know that about you either, do they? They don't know what a self-centred, disloyal brat you really are." James smiled, his best killer smile, the one everybody always fell for. The smile that could cover any lie, make any indiscretion be forgiven. So… charming then. Not good, considering this jury.

"The prosecution calls its first witness: Charles – no last name."

_What the hell?_ Trip's head whipped around and he stared at his brother. "Isn't she on the…"

"Who better to judge you," Lucifer asked, mildly, "than those who best know your guilt?"

Charles stood and glared at him. "You promised me a better life. You promised me that my 'conditions' would improve if I could read. You promised me that they'd have to listen to me. You gave me hope so it could be taken away. You destroyed me. If it hadn't been for you, I would never have known anything else… and I would have had no reason to die."

Trip shrank back in his chair. _I thought_…

"With people like you," Lucifer leaned over and whispered, "I could go into the wholesale paving business. You thought you'd strike a blow for freedom and justice, didn't you? You thought you'd make a soul less miserable… and you drove it straight into despair. I haven't met anyone that talented in a long time. And to think I'd almost lost my faith in humanity."

"Shut up," Trip pulled into himself further as Lucifer chuckled.

James smiled, at Charles this time. "He is good at that, isn't he? He makes you _believe_, and you take as gospel all his false promises. Because a face like that wouldn't lie… and he's trying to help you, right? And he could have done so much more – if he really believed that you deserved a better life – if he really believed that what you had was so wrong. He could have taken a stand, but he wanted to impress his captain and the Vulcan instead. He wanted to show them what an obedient boy he could be, rather than doing the right thing."

_That's not it at all._ It was that they'd brought up complexities that he hadn't thought of…

"Rationalising again?" Lucifer smirked. "Oh, you know the truth… you just couldn't _bear_ to have them not like you. After all, you'd have to face them every day… so much better to take the easy route, sacrifice the one who'd never see you again."

"The prosecution calls its next witness: Ensign Taylor."

Trip closed his eyes. _Why Taylor?_ It wasn't like Taylor hadn't known the risks…

"You promised that I wouldn't be forgotten. Yet how often do you remember me? How often do you think of me? What have you done to make sure that I'm remembered?"

_I do remember you_. Not as much, anymore, but he remembered.

"And you forget, too. How long before you forget entirely, and she's just a name on a roster somewhere? Before History provides her with nothing… not even a footnote. And when you're gone?"

_There's only so much I can do_. After all, it wasn't like he was all that important, himself. _Not enough for people to listen to. Not the kind of people who can do things like that... There'll be a memorial, I'm sure… but_… a couple of tears worked their way down his cheeks. He'd lied, hadn't he? He'd promised, but he couldn't follow through. Unconsciously, he covered his ears with his hands, not wanting to listen to the testimony any longer. It could only get worse from here on in… didn't you start with the minor witnesses and lead into the major ones?

"The prosecution calls…" As James spoke, Lucifer gently pulled Trip's hands down, then tapped the side of Trip's head until he opened his eyes. "Elizabeth Tucker." James smiled, and his tone became gentle. "Hello, dear sister…"

Elizabeth turned to Trip, her face sad, and almost sympathetic. "You promised me you'd look after me, Trip. You promised me you'd protect me. You always said the monsters wouldn't get me, that you'd always stop the monsters. Where were you when the monsters came? When I needed you to stop them? When I needed you to save me? Where were you, Trip? Where _were_ you? You _lied_ to me. You said you'd keep me safe, and then you let me die. Why didn't you do what you promised?"

"I… I…" _I couldn't_.

"That seems to be a bad habit with you," Lucifer mused. "Making promises that you can't keep."

Trip nodded. He did it all the time, didn't he? Told people what he thought they wanted to hear, even if he couldn't follow through. Did it matter that Elizabeth had been just a child when he made that promise? Did it matter that _he_ had been little more than – even still – a kid himself? _No. Because a promise is a promise. Cross my heart and hope to die._ Except he couldn't even make _that_ one now.

"Dying is too good for you," Lucifer agreed. "After all, all the best people die, don't they? But that's okay, Trip…"

"The prosecution calls, Sim."

_I didn't promise you anything_. He hadn't had any say in the matter.

"You. Mr. Perfect, aren't you? Mr. _Important_. More important than me… just ask your friends. My only purpose was to die, just so that you didn't have to. Your own personal saviour. And what have you done since? Lied? Broken promises? But of course, you're so much _better_." There could be no hiding the bitterness in his other's tone – he'd heard it a million times before, recounting a betrayal. Yet what right _did_ he have? _I'm the bigger Judas._

"It's okay, Trip," Lucifer repeated. "It's okay…" He slipped an arm around and began to rub Trip's back, comfortingly. "You see? No matter how low you sink, I'll always be there waiting."

Trip couldn't help it. He let himself fall into it. He closed his eyes and listened to the soothing voice, and let the hands take the tension away. _The devil is my only friend_. It came from a song, he was sure of it… he just wasn't sure which one. _Toby would know_. But Toby was gone now, and all because of him. He began to cry harder, feeling like a helpless child. And Lucifer sat beside him – a strong, comforting parent, holding his hand and telling him it would be okay.

Another voice broke in, full of anger and frustration, full of worry and pain. A voice that bored through the layers and made him sit up, the same way it always did. Jon's voice… he who must be obeyed. "What the hell is going _on_ here?"


	4. Despair and Deception

Disclaimer: I own neither _Enterprise_ or it's characters. This story is written purely for entertainment purposes, and I make no money from these efforts.

Author's notes: Thank you _very_ much for all the reviews. They are greatly appreciated, believe me. Sorry I didn't answer in previous notes penmom, but my memory isn't always the greatest thing. I once was trying to figure out where I put my car keys _while_ driving through a parking-lot (yes, they were the same ones that were – by necessity – in the ignition). I appreciate your opinion, and I can but try… but explaining backstory without getting too explanatory (and losing the story itself)… that's a talent I've yet to master. And some of it… well, you guys find out about it shortly after I do. But thank-you, and of course thank you to my amazing beta readers, silvershadowfire and gaianarchy. A combination of editor, research assistant and backup memory (hey, I _told_ you it could be bad), they rescue these things from the well of lost plots with the skill of highly trained specialists. Thanks for keeping me on my toes, guys. I need it.

**Chapter 4: Despair and Deception**

Lie to me  
Tell me everything is all right  
Lie to me  
Tell me that you'll stay here tonight  
Tell me that you'll never leave  
I'll just try to make believe  
That everything, everything you're telling me is true  
Come on, baby, just lie to me…

– Jonny Lang 

Jon tried to make sense of the mess in front of him – the tiny coloured flecks of paper that formed the most intricate jigsaw he'd ever seen. _I could use Trip for this_. He involuntarily smiled at the memory – Trip putting together a puzzle as a bar trick, the catch being that he assembled the entire thing with only the reverse sides showing.

_Unfortunately, that's never been my talent_. What made this worse than the average jigsaw was the lack of any picture to compare his construction to. He had no idea if he was doing this right or not. His mind kept drifting back to Sickbay. At least Trip knew what he was trying to reconstruct. And what was going on with him anyway? How could he get so sick, so fast? _And what the hell was he throwing up?_ "Damnit, Trip, why can't you just tell people things?"

Frustrated, he stood up and began to pace, even though he knew it accomplished nothing except to drive him more insane. _Didn't we leave stuff like this behind in the Expanse?_ A sudden chill invaded. _What if he _wasn't_ infected recently? What if it happened when he was inside that compound? From what we could tell, they _were_ building bio-weapons, and wasn't there a time when measles _was_ extremely virulent and deadly? It wouldn't be hard for someone for the future to create a 'time-bomb' version…_ Hadn't Trip scheduled a movie like that last week? Something about a virus that lay dormant and non-contagious for a while, until it suddenly mutated into an epidemic? _I don't believe in omens… besides, something like that is too simple for Trip._ And it didn't explain how he ingested human DNA, not to mention everything else in what he'd puked up.

An idea struck him, and he began searching the room for something flat and heavy. Trip had spread the pieces on a flocklined surface to prevent them from drifting away, so all Jon needed now was something to put on top. Under the bed he found a large box, covered in dust. _Perfect_. He placed it carefully on top of the scraps of picture, then picked up the whole thing. No sense sitting around here when the light in Sickbay was so much better. _My God, I'm thinking like an engineer_.

Phlox looked surprised when Jon re-entered Sickbay, balancing his project in one hand and dragging a table scavenged from the dining hall with the other. "I assume you have a chair I can borrow, Doctor."

"Certainly, Captain." Phlox rushed over to assist and Jon handed him the tray with the picture.

"Be careful with that."

"May I ask what you are doing, Captain?" Phlox waited until Jon had the table set up by Trip's bed before setting down the tray and hurrying to fetch a chair.

"The light's better in here." Jon sat down and uncovered the picture. Luckily it hadn't moved much during transport. He watched Trip for a moment, but the Southerner seemed to be sleeping peacefully for the moment.

"Ah." Phlox accepted the excuse and didn't push. "I have made some progress on my analysis of the substance that Commander Tucker vomited earlier. The DNA does not match with any record on file on this ship. I have asked Ensign Sato to contact Earth for me and see if I can get records from their databases. In the meantime I have conducted further tests. This is fascinating, Captain. Our subject was definitely female, and RNA development indicates that she was still in the maturation years, between the ages of eleven and nineteen, probably. There is also quite a mix of recessive genetics – the clearest being a tendency towards _heterochromia iridis_…"

"What?" Jon looked up at Phlox in irritated puzzlement. "Could you try and remember that I'm a layman here, Doctor?"

"She had two different coloured eyes." Phlox translated. "Now there are some…"

Jon tuned him out for the moment, staring down at the picture. _Two different_… he'd been trying to fit three people into the picture, based on the wildly disparate eyes, but if Phlox's 'subject' belonged in this picture, then there would only be two. He moved part of his work into a new position, and a face began to emerge from the mess. Piece by piece, he focused on the faces until he had enough semblance to form an identity. A boy and a girl stared out at him from the mosaic, grinning like maniacs. The girl was a stranger, but the boy… _I'll be damned if that's his nephew_. He'd seen that face before, less than a year ago. Intelligent blue eyes sparkled beneath hair that would later lighten to blond. True, Sim had never sported a blackened eye or an ugly gash like this kid, but… Jon's eyes flicked up to Trip's forehead and the barely visible scar that decorated it.

_ So who's the girl?_ Trip reminisced quite often about Melissa Lyles, but he'd clearly described her as being blond, and this didn't look like the type of girl who'd feel at home in a dress, let alone get away with wearing a red one. _Not with that hair, she couldn't_. Still, this seemed to eliminate the jealousy angle, because this girl clearly wasn't a member of _Enterprise__'s_ crew. And what kind of person would care about a long-ago girlfriend who probably couldn't even remember Trip's name?

"Fascinating, Captain." Phlox leaned over Jon's shoulder and stared at the picture. "According to my analysis of the DNA, many of the same recessive physical features are present in this child. It's quite odd to see such a combination. Do you know who she is?"

Jon shook his head. "Not a clue." He didn't recognise the picture; it was just a single tree out of the forest that Trip kept over his desk. _Except_… now that he thought about it, it _was_ one of the ones that Sim had been obsessed with, too. Obviously, then, it held some meaning for Trip.

"Captain?" Hoshi stepped through the doors, clearly apprehensive about something. "I didn't want to bother you about this, but we're having trouble with Communications. According to Lieutenant Hess, it seems like some sort of virus or something, but we can't send any outgoing messages, and it appears that the protocols themselves have been scrambled."

"What?" Jon jumped up, knocking the table and dislodging the box, strewing its contents all over the floor. First Trip, and now the ship? "What the hell is going _on_ here?"

!!!!!

Trip twisted around to see Jon coming down the aisle, and he didn't look happy. _Uh, oh_. Malcolm and T'Pol followed close behind – both of their faces were blank masks.

"Pardon me, but did you wish to address the court?" Lucifer smiled a greeting at Jon, who didn't return it.

"You're damn right I do. You call this a trial? You call that a defence?"

Lucifer's smile broadened, and Trip felt his heart freeze. "Would you care to testify? Such excellent character witnesses here, aren't they?"

Jon glared, but said nothing.

"After all, what do we have? A murderer, a thug, and a drug addicted Judas. Yes, my dear," Lucifer stared straight at T'Pol, who actually flinched. "I know that you knew how my client felt towards you, yet you still chose to give yourself to someone else. But as I have explained to him, we all must take responsibility for our decisions – and it _was_ your decision to marry Koss. Made quite rationally and logically, I believe… so you can hardly say that you were unable to consider the ramifications. As for you, Captain Archer… I must say congratulations. It's rare that I get to personally meet a man so cold-blooded as yourself… someone so willing to torpedo all those innocent people, just so there wouldn't be any witnesses. And you, sir…" His brilliant eyes shifted over to Malcolm. "I know. You were 'just following orders,' right? Just like those lovely boys at Nuremburg, recounting their work in Auschwitz, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Belzec."

"We weren't out to commit genocide." Jon's voice took on that tight controlled quality it did when he was trying not to lose his temper.

"Really?" Lucifer turned back to Trip. "Didn't you say something about going into that hatching chamber with a plasma torch? Didn't you want to kill all of those unborn babies, simply because of their race?" He caressed Trip's cheek and temple comfortingly. "It's okay, you can tell me. I won't hate you because of it."

Trip dropped his head and squeezed his eyes shut. "Yes." He whispered. He'd wanted it so badly, to be able to burn and destroy. And all because those hatchlings would one day grow up to be Xindi. He hadn't wanted to give them that chance. Toby had yelled at him for days after that, asking what made him better than the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge or the Ottoman Turks when they massacred the Armenians in 1915. That had been another reason for his lack of sleep: incessant lectures from his best friend as she compared him to Stalin in Siberia, and the Hutus dealing with the Tutsis in Rwanda.

_"All it takes is one, Trip. One person to think that it's okay, and a million more will follow suit. It's the threshold effect, Trip. You can fill a glass with water over the top and the surface tension will hold it, but as soon as one drop breaks free… You have a responsibility, Trip. Aren't you guys out here because you're supposed to be representative of how good humanity can be? Is _that_ how good we are? Mass murderers because someone did it to us? Yeah, that worked miracles in Algiers, didn't it?_"

Lucifer reached around and pulled Trip into a comforting hug, patting him on the back. "See? That wasn't so hard. Confession is _good_ for the soul, Trip. You know what?" Lucifer pulled back and looked deep into Trip's eyes. "I'll bet that if Jon hadn't kept you away from him, that you would have killed Degra yourself, wouldn't you have? An eye for an eye?"

Trip nodded, and Lucifer hugged him again. "That's okay, Trip._ I_ know what it feels like when someone takes away everything you've ever loved, and every thing you've ever cared about. When all you want to do is destroy and rend, because it's the only thing that will ease the hurt."

"And I hurt so much," Trip whispered.

"I know you did. She was your baby sister, wasn't she? And you couldn't save her. They simply slaughtered her."

"You promised." Elizabeth's quiet voice trickled into the conversation.

"Oh, God…"

"No, no, no, Trip. You gave up on that a long time ago, remember? Why prayers when it always comes down to you? You've never relied on him before. You've always done things for yourself. '…then I will profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.' But _I_ never abandon anybody. I'm here for you, go on and tell me everything."

"I…"

"No!" The doors banged open this time, rebounding off the wall. "Don't listen to him." Hess stalked down the aisle, though she wasn't in uniform. Instead, she wore a neat tailored suit, and her hair was more subtle than normal – just pale coloured streaks in her neatly coiffed locks. "He's not working in your best interests, sweetie." Her voice took on the tone it did when she slipped into her 'caretaker mode;' when she spoke to him like a small child. "He doesn't care…"

"Yes, listen to a congenital mutant and professional liar." Lucifer's tone was pleasant, but his eyes caused Hess to stop dead. "Though, ask her yourself… you shouldn't keep things from your attorney."

Trip watched the struggle on Hess' face as she wavered between a lie, and the untenable truth. Either way, she'd fall victim to the trap – it was like something she'd weave herself.

"Trip, listen to me. We need you." Jon blinked, like he was trying to hold back tears. "We're your friends…"

"The one I kiss is the one you want." Lucifer said it so softly that it sounded like it hadn't even been spoken. Trip's mind immediately flashed to T'Pol's kiss before the wedding.

_Just like Judas. You love me, but not enough_. Trip could see it in her eyes now, that same look that said she wanted to say something or do something, but she wouldn't because she was too afraid of the cost.

"You know I will take one of them in exchange," Lucifer whispered. "If they're willing to sacri…"

"No." Trip twisted to face the front again, staring at a point past the far wall. "No more tradeoffs. No more guilt." The room suddenly felt cold – too cold for any kind of comfort. "No one else suffers because of me."

"Trip…" Concern overrode Jon's tone now.

"Don't rescue me, Jon. Stop stepping in to save me from myself. Maybe that's part of my problem… that everybody always protects me, always tries to make things easier for me. I've always said that I take responsibility, but maybe I don't, maybe everybody shields me from it." Trip's voice shook, but he wasn't going to back down. _No more, no more, no more. No more all about me._

Lucifer laughed again, and this time there was nothing pleasant to it. "You should have been named 'Peter' instead of 'Charles.' You're no kind of man, but you've all the intelligence of a rock. 'I'll stand by you forever,' but when it comes down to it, you'll deny all knowledge. Oh, Peter is _hailed_ as the founder of the church, the 'Rock' it was built on… but that cornerstone had such a tendency to crumble under stress. Nearly all the good he did, was purely out of guilt. And he had such a big mouth," Lucifer grinned and gave Trip a light smack to the back of the head. "Just like you. Jumping in with both feet, and never thinking before he said anything." Lucifer stood up and spread his arms wide. "Ladies and gentlemen, my client pleads 'Guilty.' In accordance with that, let him be sentenced." He leaned down and dropped a gentle kiss on Trip's head. "And now you are mine."


	5. Execration and Exile

**Disclaimer**: I do not own _Enterprise_ or its characters.

**Author's Note**: Thanks for the patience and the reviews. Thank you, Rinne, for getting on my case about writing my paper… it's done now, but it _was_ last minute. Thank you to my beta-readers for translating this mess into a legible format, and for putting in all the words I missed (amazing how 'the' can simply disappear). But thank-you especially to my readers. This may be going in a strange direction, but hopefully by the end of the story it will make some more sense. I'll try to update as soon as possible… but I can't guarantee anything. On either point.

**Chapter 5: Execration and Exile**.

They say it's darkest right before the dawn  
But oh, those darkest hours can be so long  
You're feelin' strong, boy  
Tellin' yourself, she's wrong, boy  
But how much longer can this night go on, boy?  
One lonely night  
One lonely night  
That's all it takes to  
Completely break you  
– REO Speedwagon

Hell is other people  
– Jean Paul Sartre

When I look in the mirror,  
Sometimes I see traces of some other guy  
– Blue Rodeo

* * *

_Well, they were wrong on one point._ Trip stared around and shivered. Other people would be welcome – even someone like Bryson or Higgens would at least be _someone_ to talk to, or get mad at, or _something_. But this…

He sank down to the ground, and buried his face on his knees. _I thought I was alone before_. Hell wasn't _other_ people; it was the lack of people… the lack of anyone to care or anyone to care _for_. Not even the courtroom remained, just this cold, over-bright nothingness. _I've never been afraid of the dark. It's always been the light_. Dark was natural – most of the universe lay in the dark. _But no one can survive this close to the sun_.

Not that there was heat – for heat implied warmth, and warmth implied love. _Which must be why the human race is so obsessed with fire_. So much so that it became imbedded into the language. Love was warm, a gentle comfort to a flame-driven passion. Fear, on the other hand found itself comprised only of chills. Frozen in terror. A person who couldn't love – didn't language call him 'cold?'

_Of course, we're afraid of fire, too_. Fire was one of the greatest destructive forces known. But wasn't that part of it? Hadn't Toby mentioned some Indian god whose aspect consisted of creation and destruction together? And some rumour had it that someone on one of the earlier warp projects had nicknamed it the 'new cult of Shiva' or something? _It creates. It destroys._ Even brimstone – the stuff of hell – had its creative properties, didn't it? Hawaii, that tropical paradise wouldn't be there for mankind to enjoy were it not for the machinations of what mankind so often thought was hell.

_But they were wrong_. No, every engineer learned the worst, most destructive burns weren't from heat, but from cold. Coolant burned worse than plasma and left bigger scars. Love didn't do the damage – the damage was done when that love was ripped away and left you raw and bleeding, the wounds freezing and the soul dying piece by piece until there was nothing of it left.

And yet, he recognised his own handiwork here. He'd hassled Malcolm on Shuttlepod One, out of jealousy more than anything else. _I didn't even have anyone to write _to. He hadn't really spoken to his parents in years – oh sure, the obligatory letter home or Christmas or birthday card, but never actually _talked_. The same with the rest of them: Elizabeth, James… _At least you had a way to keep in touch with the girls, Mal_. He didn't even have that. When he walked away he never bothered to maintain contact… it was too messy or too complicated or too difficult or too always _something._ Would he be able to handle even small-talk with T'Pol if she _had_ disappeared for a year on Vulcan, then returned again? Or would she simply be another memory to be avoided or edited down to a couple of words in a passing conversation?

And Malcolm and Jon… they were his closest living friends, and they didn't know him at all. Oh, they thought they did – after all, didn't they spend more time with him than anybody else? And they knew _more_ about him than anybody else, but they still didn't know. _Because if you did, you'd be gone. No one wants to be friends with someone who might go crazy at any given moment._ Well, Nicci maybe… but Nicci was strange. Sometimes he got the idea that he was just an oversized pet – someone to be fussed over and taken care of. _Damaged goods, just like the other two_. A stray taken in for no other reason than that he _was_ a stray and she couldn't stand the thought of an abandoned creature. _But I never really reciprocated. I never really paid her back for the cost of food and shelter and medical care._ Not just metaphorical – how many times had he crashed on her couch because he was too drunk to go home and she hauled him somewhere safe, or even out of jail on occasion, taking care to ensure that the charges disappeared? And scolded him like you would a puppy who messed up the rug – fully aware that you couldn't blame him too much because he really didn't know any better.

_Nope, even she doesn't know everything._ Even she never got close enough to know him, to have any idea who Charles Tucker III really was. _Only one person really knew me – knew me and stuck with me, and I sent her away._ Lucifer was right; he really _did_ have a big mouth, and somewhere along the line he'd disconnected it from his brain.

_And now…_ and now all he had was the light and the cold and the knowledge that there was no love left anywhere.

* * *

Jon stared at the mess on the floor, a mix of papers and coloured pencils and other assorted objects, including several small vials of coloured liquid and a fine black dust that smeared itself over the deck with just the touch of paper. _More secrets_, he realised – more clues to the identity of the stranger he called a best friend. 

"Ensign." He forced himself to look away, to look at Hoshi while he spoke to her. "I want you and Lieutenant Hess to focus yourselves on getting communications up and running. Get T'Pol to help you. You said it seems to be a virus? An internal problem?" He tried not to grit his teeth out of frustration, not with Hoshi but with himself. _I ought to be able to pay attention to a statement made only seconds ago_. And this was ship's operations, which was _supposed_ to be his primary concern. _Except, why do I have the feeling that the one person who knows what's going on is lying on a bed in front of me?_

An alarm sounded, and his eyes flew to the monitor, even as Phlox stepped around Hoshi and to the other side of the bed.

"His fever is increasing." Jon could barely hear Phlox either, Trip's teeth chattered together, the sound boring into Jon's brain. He watched numbly as Phlox injected something into Trip, and waited for it to work. His eyes shifted to the monitor, watching for any change.

Phlox muttered something, out of character for him. "The medication seems to have halted the rise of the fever, but it's not decreasing as it should. We're going to have to attempt to lower it physically. If you could excuse me…"

Jon shook his head. He wasn't leaving now. "How do we do that?"

Phlox glanced uneasily at Hoshi, who looked as worried as Jon had ever seen her. "We need to cool him off."

Jon nodded. "You have a job, Ensign." He tried not to consider the fact that he did too, and was ignoring it. _I'm needed here_.

Phlox didn't even wait for Hoshi to be all the way out the door before he began stripping Trip of his uniform. As Jon stepped in to help, Phlox left him to it, retrieving a large, silvery blanket from one of the drawers. When they finished removing Trip's clothing, Phlox spread the blanket over his patient and set a program on the controls. Jon reached out and touched the blanket – it was freezing.

"It seems almost cruel," he murmured, watching as Trip's shivering increased. "He feels so cold already."

"Yes, Captain, but that is because his body heat is greater than the ambient air around him, making him _feel_ cold, when in actual fact he is overheating."

"I know what a fever is, Doctor." Jon snapped. "And I know we're doing the right thing. What I _don't_ know is if _he_ knows that." He stopped, registering Phlox's look of hurt. "I'm sorry…"

"Captain, I very much doubt that Commander Tucker is aware of anything at this moment. If this fever continues, there is a very large possibility of permanent brain damage, if not death."

Jon closed his eyes. _I know that. But he's my best friend, I can't give up hope._ His toe nudged against something, and he looked down again at the avalanche of papers and miscellaneous items. He bent down and began to pick them up, intending to place them back in the box, except…

_I never knew you were an artist._ The black powder, he realised, was charcoal from the fragile sticks artists used to create their drawings. And the coloured pencils weren't the heavy-wax ones Jon himself had used as a kid, they were an _artist's_ pencils – graphite and colour with very little wax at all, delicate, but capable of more subtle work than the standard issue. He stacked the papers carefully, trying not to allow them to rub against each other and smear. When he had everything picked up, he sat down again, and began to examine the drawings.

Some of them were old – pictures of people Jon had never seen, almost candid shots as though they were re-created from the artist's memory of a scene rather than portraits from a pose. But others were more recent, and confirmed that suspicion. One of the crew, hard at work on the bridge, made more detailed in the black and white of charcoal than the brilliant colours of a photograph could ever produce. No doubt as to the angle, either – off to the right of the captain's chair in the engineering station. _I had no idea we were being watched._ The more he flipped through them, the more his amazement grew. Not one of the scenes would be called noteworthy in any common interpretation of the term, but Trip seemed to have captured mundanity and turned it into something breathtaking. _You _are_ an artist_.

One caught his eye. He put the rest down to look at it for a moment. Not done in charcoal, this was pen and ink in a bright pink shade, faded somewhat over time. Not the girl from the photograph – this one was older and her face slightly familiar. An odd, almost mischievously wicked smile tugged at her lips, and the same emotion seemed to sparkle in her eyes. _I know her from somewhere_. One of Trip's many girlfriends, perhaps? Just special enough to be immortalised in ink but not special enough to bear mention? _Usually it's the other way around_. Except… Jon looked more closely. The lines weren't lines at all, but… he squinted. _Ones and zeros?_ This must have taken forever to create – this had to be _somebody_. Carefully he set it aside; he'd have to ask Trip about it later.

_Of course, that means admitting you pried into his things_. Jon felt a sudden rush of guilt, like he was reading someone else's diary. _But I can't help it. You've been my friend for year. I want to know who you are._ He hadn't even known that Trip _could_ draw. Technical sketches, sure, but this went way beyond that. These pictures had _life_ –pieces and clues to Trip's soul, if only Jon could figure out the code.

He found another one, more recent. _I should know this person too_. The face provided no hints, but the background was clearly somewhere on _Enterprise_ and her uniform identified her as Starfleet. She seemed an odd choice for a model, not very pretty, a bit overweight, not the type to catch Trip's eye at all. But she had, somehow. The evidence lay in his hands.

He picked up two more. One was of Malcolm on a shuttlepod, looking almost desperate and alone. _Worried_. Jon was willing to lay money that _this_ one dated to that now infamous couple of days that started the friendship. Neither Commander nor Lieutenant spoke much about what happened during that time – but when _Enterprise_found them, drunk and hypothermic, they'd gone from rivals and near enemies to friends despite the differences. The other was of Jon himself, looking serious about something. He frowned now, looking at it. Then he dropped them to the desk and shuffled through the rest of them again, sorting out the portraits from the 'action' shots.

_Me. Malcolm. Lieutenant Hess. The girl in pink, and the unknown crewman. Elizabeth…_ there were a couple of her… _and your mysterious redhead who dominates the pack_. Out of all of the drawings, only seven subjects had been deemed worthy of portraiture. _Why?_ _What do we share, that no one else does?_ Even T'Pol had been left out in the cold, an odd decision given Trip's obvious feelings for her – even if they _had_ seemed to have changed just recently.

_Or maybe not._ He stared at the pictures again. He was pretty sure about the crewman, and the redhead seemed to stop aging while still a teen. _And I'm pretty sure about Malcolm and I, unless we _really_ don't know you at all._ As for Elizabeth… well, Trip's reaction to her death had been pretty extreme, but nothing out of the ordinary. _If I'm right, then not _one_ of these is someone you've been romantically involved with_. Other than that, he couldn't figure out a link. Two men, his sister, and… _If I've got anything in common with Lieutenant Hess, then I'm not sure I _want_ to know about it._

"Whoa." A voice by his ear confirmed that you didn't even have to speak of the devil for her to appear. He'd been so caught up in the pictures that he hadn't even heard the Sickbay doors open, or her footsteps on approach. "I never knew he knew _her_."

"Who?" Jon grabbed Hess' arm, his fingers digging in deep, and any thoughts of reprimanding her for leaving her post – or simply being present to annoy him – forgotten.

Hess looked at him until he loosened his grip slightly, then tapped the picture done in pink. "Gina Todd."

"Who?" Jon repeated. The name meant no more than the face had.

"Gina Todd, only one of _the_ top names in encryption programming. She was a software _genius_. Or maybe is… no one's really sure what happened to her. She dropped out of sight a couple of years ago." Suddenly Hess paled. "Oh no."

Jon gritted his teeth. "'Oh no,' what, Lieutenant? Don't tell me 'oh no.'"

"Oh no, if this is what I think it might be, then we are so dead that we might as well break out the cyanide. See, apparently she had been contracted to write a kick-ass encryption program for the government, and she delivered it right before she disappeared."

"I'm not in the mood for conspiracy theories, Lieutenant. The government doesn't order things and then kill the suppliers. For one thing it would be hard to get anyone to bid on a contract."

"That's not it, sir. She delivered the program encrypted in its own encryption. She said she'd take payment when they started using the program. This was five years ago, sir, and scuttlebutt says they still haven't cracked it." She was probably right on the scuttlebutt – some of Hess' connections were as highly placed as you could get.

"After five years?" Jon felt the blood draining from his face too. "Have you any idea the level of computing power the government has to throw at something like that?"

"Yes, sir, and it's more than we've got."

"So what you're saying is that you think that somehow this program got onto our computers, and has encrypted our communications protocols. And there's no way to break it." Jon took a deep breath, trying to keep calm. _Any more secrets you're hiding from me, buddy?_ He had a fairly good idea just where the program came from – top level designers didn't tend to let their work just walk out the door, and Starfleet didn't tend to let outside programs just walk in. Only two ways a program like that ended up on _Enterprise__'s_ computer. Either Trip stole it, or it had been given to him as a gift. _Because it's not something you could buy, is it?_

"That's essentially it, sir. Best guess is that it's based on rotating clear-text, meaning that even someone as good with anagrams as Ensign Sato isn't going to manage it, sir. The only way to break into something like that, sir, is if you've got the key."

Jon stared for a while at Trip, still shivering violently under the cold blanket. His fever hadn't declined in the slightest, sending Phlox off on another round of comprehensive tests. Frustrated, he stood up and crossed to the sink. Filling a basin with water, he grabbed a clean cloth and returned to the bed, and began sponging Trip's forehead and face. Old fashioned, maybe, but he had to do something.

"You've got it, don't you? You've got the key somewhere in that head of yours, but like everything else, it's locked in tight." He didn't even look back at Hess as he raised his voice. "Do you recognise anybody else?"

"You… and Malcolm." He didn't snap at her for being ridiculous, for once she actually seemed to be cooperating rather than her usual borderline obstruction. "And me of course. His sister…" She picked up the one of the unidentified crewman. "I _think_ that's Crewman DiLorenza. She's in Maintenance – technically – though he had direct command shifted over to him a couple of years ago. Odd, but not unheard of, I guess. He said he didn't want anybody getting in her way." Her brow furrowed. "Kaci DiLorenza, I think."

"Get in her way, Lieutenant. Get her up here. I want to talk to her. You don't recognise the other one?"

Hess shook her head. "No, sir." She looked both at the drawings and the photograph. "He's never mentioned her before sir, not ever. I haven't got a clue."

"Well, maybe Crewman DiLorenza knows," Jon muttered. "Get her up here."

"Yes, sir." Hess didn't question the strangeness of her captain conducting his business from sick-bay. She had reason to be worried too, he realised.

_You're more than just a commanding officer to her, just like you're more than just my chief engineer to me_. Some people questioned the relationship between Trip and Hess, bordering as it did on fraternisation. _But is it really any different than what's between you and me?_ Maybe that was the link, but how did Crewman DiLorenza fit into that? And if it was just about friendship… well then why didn't Hoshi or Travis merit membership?

He wrung the cloth out again, and continued to wet Trip's face and head. The fever overheated the Southerner's skin, causing the water to evaporate way more quickly than it should. "Come on, Trip." It had to break. They couldn't lose him now. "Come on, pal. I've killed to keep you alive. Don't tell me that it was for nothing. You're a fighter, start fighting this. We need you out here, pal." He had no idea whether Trip could hear him or not, but decided to take the chance. "Don't give up on us yet. Come on… fight." He felt tears burning in his eyes and blinked them back. "That's an order, Mister. Do you hear me? You are not allowed to die. I am not giving you permission to die. You are going to beat this and then you are going to pull one of your patented Trip Tucker miracles and save your ship."

Trip's eyelids flickered wildly, and his eyes moved frantically beneath them.

"That's right, you listen to me. Now, from what Phlox tells me, you beat this once, so you're going to beat it again. There is no other option."

He sensed someone behind him, and turned to look. "Crewman DiLorenza?" Seeing her in colour wasn't that much different than the black and white. Her hair was dark enough brown to almost be black, and her eyes were the same – like dark chocolate.

She nodded, but said nothing.

"Tell me about the relationship between you and Commander Tucker." There was no time to beat around the bush, and it wasn't his style anyway.

She cocked her head slightly, and knit her brow in a question, but still remained silent.

"The relationship between you and Commander Tucker. What did it consist of?" He glanced over at the drawings and back at her.

She moved over to the table and examined the drawings, then stepped up beside the bed, studying Trip. "He's scared." Her voice was light and musical – beauty to contrast the plainness of her appearance. "He doesn't like to be alone."

_That wasn't the question, Crewman_. Jon fought down the urge to reach over and shake her. "Crewman…" _I asked for a member of Starfleet and they sent me a space cadet._ He chewed on his lip, to keep from saying something that could get him reprimanded for abuse. Instead, he acted on a hunch. Picking up one of the drawings of the redhead, he held it in front of her face. "Do you recognise her?"

"She's his friend." Other than answering the question, and with no sign that she even recognised who she was speaking to, she didn't react.

"And her name might be?" Jon decided not to tax DiLorenza with anything too difficult like explaining how she knew what Trip's closest friends didn't.

"Toby." She stepped around the picture until it no longer blocked her vision. The same trance-like look stayed on her face, but now she started to sing. "…when you're standing at the cross-roads, and don't know what to choose, let me come along, even if you're wrong… I'll stand by you, I'll stand by you…" She picked up one of Trip's hands and held it between hers, seemingly oblivious to the spots.

Jon set the drawing back down so he wouldn't crush it as his hands curled into fists. _You can't kill her, Jon. For one thing, she knows more than you do. For another…_ he watched in amazement, as Trip's fever slipped a notch. _For another, if she keeps that up, you may have to give her a medal for saving his life._ Still… there were things he needed to know.

"Crewman, I know you don't think this is important…"

"You're worried, sir. I understand." She still didn't look at him, but at least she seemed a little more attuned to this reality.

"Okay, Crewman… now who the hell is Toby?"

* * *

_You wouldn't understand, sir._ No, Captain Archer would never understand, not entirely. Understanding was not his gift… not understanding on the level that would be needed. _You're still too afraid to understand.__Which is why he won't tell you_. Fear was the only thing to fear, she knew that well, herself. _People hurt out of fear._ Prejudice fed on fear, nurtured itself with it. _And you are afraid of death. You are afraid not to die, but of what waits for you in death._ _You are afraid because you don't know, but the knowledge would scare you even more_. And he was afraid to lose his best friend to that world, even a little bit. If he knew that Commander Tucker lived every day on the fringes of that world, he would be terrified. "She is his friend, sir." 

"You said that. Toby _What?_"

"I don't know, sir. He never said." And since he never said, Kaci didn't ask. He would have told her, if it were important.

"How did you hear about her?" The captain was growing frustrated; he was not a person who could accept non-knowledge.

_You need to feel in charge… you cannot let things go and let them be_. "She was there, sir."

"Where? Did you know Commander Tucker before _Enterprise_"

"No, sir."

She heard the captain grinding his teeth. _You _don't_ understand. He would not tell you, because he cares about you too much. He values your opinion of him. He values your friendship and your approval._

"Well, _Crewman_, I am _certain_ I would remember a person as strikingly individual as _that_ on board my ship. Since his time on Earth _before_ we entered The Expanse was spent largely with Lieutenant Reed, and he didn't visit _after_ we came back, I'm sure you can see how I might be somewhat confused. Now… Where. Did. You. See. Her?"

"Here, sir." She glanced over at the Sickbay doors repaired now, or rather replaced, since the damage had been too great to allow repair.

She sensed his struggle, as he suddenly remembered the doors. "Here…"

"Yes, sir." _But where are you now?_ Perhaps they had argued, and the child had gone to sulk like a child would, not realising the danger her friend now faced.

"As I said, Crewman: I think I would remember someone of that appearance on board my ship. And Doctor Phlox has no memory of her either, and trust me, he would have been fascinated."

"You weren't here, sir." No, that had been someone else – not this Archer at all.

"Crewman…"

She felt the suppressed rage and knew that he wouldn't be able to hold onto it that much longer. "She is his best friend, sir. Her name is Toby."

Then it did snap, nearly into violence. "Thank-you, Crewman, I believe we already covered that. Now I don't suppose you have any idea why he was puking up her DNA, would you?"

_So it's come to that_. And the captain had a piece then, and no idea how to fit it into the picture. "That's not what I'm good at, sir." She wondered if Commander Tucker knew, or if this was recent, with his illness. If he didn't know, then she had no right to say. _It is his life, his burden, not mine. I will help him bear it, but I will not add to the weight_. She said nothing. _I am not sure entirely what it _does_ mean._

"Kind of like interpersonal communication," Archer muttered.

She didn't take offence – it was true. She didn't communicate well with people, which was why she preferred to work with machines. People were messy, complicated and noisy. Commander Tucker understood, though, which was why he'd taken steps to make sure she was left alone. _He has faith where you cannot_. Archer trusted his people, but had trouble with faith. He was a man of command and paperwork – Starfleet trained its people so they believed in reports and requisitions. He needed to know what was going on, he didn't have the ability to let go and let be. But Commander Tucker was learning that lesson, perhaps one day the captain could too.

"Captain," the doctor approached, perhaps sensing the tension himself, and better able to understand the situation. Kaci knew all about Phlox's tendency to fascination – he'd watched her many times with his animals, not understanding at all, but wanting to study her interactions with them, because they were not the normal human interactions at all. Most people were terrified of them, especially when he used them as aids in his treatments. _But sometimes they are better_. People couldn't understand that – they connected insects with decay, and decay with death. But dead flesh cannot heal, and some things would only eat the deadened flesh, leaving what still lived and giving it the ability to repair itself. _Nature does not make mistakes_.

"What?" Archer snapped back at Phlox, his anger transferring to the innocent.

"As you are aware, I spent some time studying human spiritual beliefs. There are some that believe that the soul exists separate from the body, even transcending death…"

"Are you trying to tell me that the crewman here saw a _ghost?_ I'm sorry, Doctor, but that's a little far-fetched." No, Archer did not have faith – if he could not see it, it did not exist. He was a man of science, raised to believe in what the microscope and telescope could find.

_But some things cannot be replicated in a lab_. The universe was not a sterile environment full of sensors and data collectors, it was a chaotic creation with billions upon trillions of different things influencing the outcome, a change in any of which could change the result. Nor was it a closed system, as most people assumed, outside forces affected it all the time.

She left them to their argument, and turned instead to her commanding officer. The captain wanted to know what the relationship was, but she couldn't tell him. She did not know what words could define it. Not friendship, not in the common sense, for they had no interests in common, and spent no time together exploring them. Certainly not love, under ordinary definitions. The closest physical contact they'd shared consisted of lifesaving measures, and emotionally neither one of them dared supply something like that. He feared the hurt, and she was too at home in her peace. Quiet companions, perhaps… he'd taken to tracking her down lately – finding out where she was at work and joining her there, afraid to be alone but not wanting to answer questions either. He knew she'd never ask them, and at the same time wouldn't be intimidated by his presence. _He's been needing the silence_. Yet she'd felt the pain there, too… it wasn't just fear of being alone – he didn't _trust_ himself to be alone. She watched him now in his contradiction: cold from too much heat.

_You want to be alone, but you're afraid to be by yourself._ Other things had changed since they met: a portion of his strength had disappeared. She glanced back at the captain – like most people, now that he was distracted he'd lost conscious track of her. _You want him to fight, but the fighter is gone._ She picked up her commander's left hand again, adding pressure. _You found it once… try again._

_

* * *

_

He heard it before he saw it, crackling and popping – felt the heat driving out the cold. Then he could see – flickers of red and orange dulling the intensity of the white light. Hell was on fire. Black smoke descended from above, and instinctively he dropped, trying to stay below it. _More people die from smoke inhalation than from the fire itself. Stay low. Take controlled breaths. Don't panic._ Why he thought of survival when already dead, he had no idea. But the rules of survival in a fire came to him instantly, almost instinctively. They always had – during drills and tests at the Academy, he'd always been the last to panic: smoke and fire never instilled fear.

"Jesus, Tucker… and to think I mighta at one time thought there mighta been hope for you. Why I waste my time I haven't got a clue."

He knew that voice. It was his voice, but not his at the same time. Sarcastic, impatient and more in control than he'd ever managed. He rolled over onto his back and stared up into a familiar face. His own… a little more lined maybe, and with a cigarette dangling in the corner of his mouth. And the eyes… overcast grey to contrast his own sunny blue. But other than that…

A heavily gloved hand clamped onto his collar, hauling him to his feet. _Right_. He'd forgotten that – his doppelganger was _strong_, too. Better dressed for the new surroundings too: instead of a light Starfleet uniform, he wore a heavy yellow jacket and pants – stained black in too many places and held shut with a complicated array of fasteners – and even heavier boots. A helmet and old-fashioned air-tank with mask rounded out the array.

He stared in panic, wondering what new tricks the devil had in store. His twin sighed, as though dealing with an exceptionally slow child and trying to teach an exceptionally important lesson that couldn't be delivered via knock to the head.

"Are you deliberately dense, Tucker, or did you just pick up on those genes through osmosis?" The doppelganger looked upwards, as though in prayer. "Hell, part of it got laid out for you, and you _still_ can't catch on." A thicker accent than his own, too, as though his other never got out of the South.

Trip closed his eyes. "You're a voice in my head," he whispered, "You're not real." Besides, he'd lost this part of him… hadn't heard a word since that head injury – since Sim.

"Craziness runs in your _mother's_ family, Tucker… that ain't what you resemble. Yeah, you got that wrong too." The hand released his shoulder and thumped on his head. "Now if that other boy could remember…" Trip opened his eyes to stare into his other's as the stranger-not-stranger continued, "… might take some effort, but I think you can." The voice softened, almost to a hypnotic whisper. "Think about it boy… why the hell are you afraid of heights?"

"I…" Images flickered through his brain, memories that couldn't be his. He'd never been there, never seen those things. He _couldn't_ have seen any of these things, not even as a child. It was impossible for them to be part of his subconscious, yet.

"They say the body remembers… everything's in cycles. The body remembers… it never forgets, even the things the mind throws away."

_Genetic memory_. Phlox kept nattering on about it, kept asking him if he remembered anything about Sim, wanting to explore the matter – not seeming to realise that Trip didn't want to be a lab rat. He breathed and smelled smoke again, and it was grease and pollution and the scent of spices and cooking tomatoes, the sound of steel against wood, and membership in a ten-percent minority. Then shouts in the familiar tones of home. Remembering.


	6. Fire and Flame

**Disclaimer**: I don't own _Enterprise_, or its characters. Right now, I'm annoyed with the people who do… for reasons I think most of you can understand.

**Author's note**: Yes, finally an update here! Sorry it took so long, but I _had_ written the chapter, and the two betas I had at the time (I still have them, I just picked up a third since) had the _same_ major problem with it, which is so rare that I decided it _must_ be a problem, so had to sit down and re-write. And then I got hijacked by a few other things and lost the train of thought for this, but it's back now.

And yes, I do have a plan here… I'm just not telling everybody what it is.

Thank you to my betas: **silvershadowfire**, **kate98**, and **gaianarchy**… especially on the first go-round when you said it made no sense. Otherwise this would never have been written at all ;)

Oh, and sorry about the space breaks... it seems like every time I get something figured out that I can put in straight from Word, eliminates it. I don't like having to mess around with those stupid lines every time. _(break)_ is a break in scene... the ampersand (_&_) is simply a break in time. Confused yet? You haven't even started reading.

Chapter 6: Fire and Flame

"Till I am myself again."  
– Blue Rodeo

"…as I look in the mirror,  
Sometimes I see traces of some other guy…"  
– Blue Rodeo

He wasn't always Charles Tucker the Third, he wasn't always a Tucker. He'd been someone else, a name not on any Tucker family tree. _McLaren_. A crazy, overly-smart man from a crazy, overly-smart family, where along with a tendency to left-handedness, something else hid out in the genes. Something nobody believed in, so it couldn't be real.

"Hey! McLaren! You gonna do this or not?"

He blinked and stared down at his hand, feeling a physical pain grip his chest. It was a crime, damn near a sin to fold on a queen's high flush, but it was straight out stupid to keep playing when you didn't even know the name of the game, let alone what the bet was.

"Lemme guess… He's having one of his 'visions' again." The crowd laughed at the joke, though most of it was the uneasy 'I'm only doing this to make it seem like it's a joke and not out-and-out harassment' sort.

"Yo, Bobby, no cheatin' on the cards, huh?" A hand rattled his arm, trying to draw his attention.

_I'm not…_ but he was… or wasn't he? "Sorry. Excuse me." He picked up the deck and slipped the cards into it then gave it a quick shuffle so they couldn't discover how good a hand he'd had. "I'm out, guys. Later." Everything about this was wrong… but right. Familiar. He was Bobby, and that guy over there was Jimmy Dickerson, the guy sitting next to him was Jake Holleran – outta New York originally – and beside _him_ was none other than… Tucker. _But _I'm_ Tucker. Charles Tucker the…_ No… he was Bobby Mc… He knit his brow, trying to sort it out. _That_ Tucker – Doug – had dark hair and dark eyes, like the side of the family _not_ noted for its brains. He stood up and walked around behind one of the big fire trucks that dominated the area. Looking in the mirror, he confirmed it.

_Yup… that's me, all right_. The same blond hair – though cut differently, same high cheekbones, same chin and of course that nose. But grey eyes instead of blue. So if _he_ was McLaren, and the dark-haired guy was Tucker… how in the hell did Charles Tucker III end up looking like this?

_Does the term _ex_-wife mean anything to you? _Nice to know he hadn't completely lost his old voice. Another anomaly surfaced. _If this is genetic memory… and he and I are the same… how come if Sim knew everything _I_ knew, I'm not remembering things about Bobby?_ The easy answer there, of course, was that Sim was a first generation clone and Trip was just the result of genes regaining dominance after several generations in hiding. _Not everything's the same, either_. Trip was right-handed, but Bobby's watch seemed to indicate the opposite. _So really, who am I?_

_(break) _

"This is odd, Captain." Phlox frowned over the readouts, checking them and the equipment for the third time. Trip's fever had fallen, but now there was a new concern. "It's as though his brain function has changed entirely."

"Didn't you say that brain damage was a possibility?" Jon didn't want to say the words, but he knew he had to face it. He ran a hand over his face, the exhaustion setting in again. He looked at DiLorenza, who'd dropped Trip's hand and now merely watched him.

"This doesn't appear to be brain damage, Captain." Phlox shook his head. "It's as though he's become a different person. The brain is functioning, but they're not Commander Tucker's brain patterns."

Now Jon glared at DiLorenza. "I suppose this is familiar to you, too."

She didn't answer, merely frowned.

"If you don't start giving me some answers, Crewman…" Jon left the threat hanging.

"I don't know, Captain," she finally responded.

_Why doesn't that come as a surprise?_ "Crewman. Your boss, my _friend_, may be dying. Any help you can give us would be greatly appreciated. Do you understand that?" He couldn't stop the sarcasm. He didn't want to anymore, either.

"Yes." She didn't change expression or inflection.

"Now what do you know about this?"

"I don't know, Captain."

Jon blinked. "You don't know what you know?"

"No, Sir."

_That is a legitimate answer, Jon. Just because most people won't admit to it doesn't mean that it's not legitimate. _He had to remind himself that this was another one of Trip's strays. It was something Trip had a reputation for: collecting the odd and unwanted from all the other teams and assembling them into something even better than the best. In some ways, he was a better communicator than even Hoshi. It was as though he had an instinct for understanding, and asking the right questions. "Is there _anything_ you can think of that would help explain this?"

She looked straight at him, the first time she'd done that. Her eyes trapped his and he found himself unable to move. Suddenly the Crewman was in charge here, not the Captain. "Belief."

"Belief?" As far as Jon knew, Trip wasn't religious in any way. "Trip's not…"

"His mind believes…"

"Of course!" Phlox's head whipped around. "Psychosomatic illness. I don't know why I didn't think of it before." He frowned. "That doesn't explain the virus, though. Usually when it's psychosomatic there is no underlying illness or organic reason to explain the symptoms. Unless, of course, Commander Tucker's body is manufacturing the virus. That could help explain why it doesn't seem to be contagious. It might be targeted for him alone, it might not even truly _be_ a virus. This is astounding, Captain. I don't believe that such illnesses have been studied to great extent in humans. They are far more common in species like Vulcans where the mind/body discipline is much stronger. Of course, Vulcans rarely have the emotional issues that tend to go along with such illnesses…"

"This is Trip! Not some goddamned study case!" Jon rounded on Phlox now. "He's sick! He could be dying, and you're acting like it's the best thing that ever happened to you!" He took a deep breath, trying to regain control. "This is not in his head, this is real."

"The _symptoms_ are real, Captain. He believes he should be ill, so his body creates the illness."

"I don't care what the goddamn cause is, I want him better."

Trip twitched, his left hand folding and unfolding. Underneath the spots, his skin began to darken, save for a two-inch wide band around his right wrist. Other subtle changes began to transform him: his jaw jutted forward just slightly, giving him an even greater expression of stubborn determination. He shifted in the bed, almost seeming to gain muscle mass.

"Astonishing. It's almost as though this other brain pattern is taking over Commander Tucker, completely. His body is reacting as though he were someone else."

"I don't _want_ someone else, Doctor. I _want_ my chief engineer." This was insane. How could one person _literally_ turn into another? Wasn't there some rule of genetics that said who you were was who you were? Not entirely, of course – certain traits and habits were developed, sure, but these were drastic _physical_ changes in the course of a few seconds. _Especially that tan_. Trip looked like he'd just spent months exposed to heavy-duty U.V. rays, not like he'd spent the last several years locked in a 'tin-can in outer-space' as he'd once referred to the original design of the starship. _Even decon doesn't get you like that_.

The alarms sounded again as Trip's brain-patterns went from crazy to outright psychotic. Then his eyes flew open and Jon felt his mouth go dry. _I thought his eyes were blue_. Instead, the irises seemed to have turned greyish – metallic and cold. He didn't appear conscious, though. Then the impossible, again: twin streams of smoke streamed from his nostrils as his eyes narrowed, focussing on something no one else could see.

A crazy question came to Jon's mind, but the only one that made any kind of sense. _Who are you?_

_(break) _

It took two drags for him to even register that he'd taken a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. _Smoking's that automatic for me?_ Now there was a scary thought. _I'm a fireman. Firemen smoke_. _No… I'm an engineer and Starfleet frowns on that sort of thing._ Except wasn't playing with anti-matter just an advanced form of playing with fire? And all that plasma… wasn't fire-control a big _part_ of an engineer's job? _Wow_. His instructors had been impressed with his composure when things burst into flames – could this be why? _I've never been afraid of fire_. Respectful, yes, but not afraid.

Another memory popped up, this one from Trip's life, not Bobby's. _I could've been a hero_. Probably _would_ have been, if he'd stuck around to answer questions. But he shouldn't have been out where he was, when he was. Out past curfew: the Academy would have never let him move on if he got caught for that again. _But when that lady started screaming…_ he hadn't thought, just went in to the burning building that everyone else was trying to get out of. He'd just _known_ that he'd find the kid under the bed. He got her out, dropped her with her mother and took off. All the way home he'd tried to convince himself he hadn't done it – the hangover the next morning gave him another excuse.

_But maybe I didn't_. Maybe he was running off someone else. Maybe that was what instinct really was: a memory from the genes that bypassed the conscious brain and just propelled action. _Which still doesn't explain why I'm _here.

_Remember_… the voice echoed in his head again. His voice? Or was he… _No, I'm going to work off the assumption that I'm not crazy_. Not necessarily a good assumption, but it served as a starting point. _Remember what?_ Remember the first fifteen digits of pi? Remember that cigarettes caused cancer, not just to the smoker, but to everyone around him?

_Remember to be careful not to touch._ Not to touch _what? _ Hot objects? Live wires? People kept telling him that all the time. That didn't mean he listened.

He left the firehouse and walked outside into the bake-oven of a Floridian summer. _Now _this_ I've missed._ Nobody understood why he didn't like deserts – they thought a hot climate was a hot climate. But deserts were a _dry_ heat. Everybody said that was easier to deal with, that it was the humidity that always got you, but dry heat sapped him like _that_. _Funny we don't often land in swamps, though_. The last swamp he was in… that was way back when he'd been on the lam with Katiaana. _She'd _hated it, but to him it was just like coming home. _Right down to fighting with the girl_. He found himself tempted to just stay here forever. Hide out in the past and not go back to the grief that was his present future. Here things were so much less… complicated.

_You don't really believe that, do you?_ Of course not, but it was still tempting. _And Jon'd be the first to tell you that I'm not so good at resisting temptation._ It remained one of the straining points in their friendship. Hell, it was one of the straining points in _every_ friendship he'd ever had.

_Except one_. He gritted his teeth, refusing to let himself cry. Toby'd never been judgemental about that – if anything, she was more impulsive than him. She'd taught him how to be impulsive, really – taught him that sometimes you had to let go if you wanted to stand any chance of having fun. _Let go, Charles Wallace_. Not that his middle name was Wallace, but ever since she read those books she'd been dying to call _somebody_ that. She said he fit the bill.

_Except I'm not smart_. Smart wouldn't have gotten himself mixed up in romantic complications with another species. _Alien. _Alien_ species._ He found himself wanting to start giggling, more out of hysteria than humour. _Never quite considered that cliché before_.

"Let go," he murmured. What _was_ that story? The kid was becoming someone else or something… _Become_.

"Right." He took a deep breath. His mother warned him about this: that one day he'd get lost in his own imagination and never find the way out. But what did he have to come out _to?_ The fact that he allowed something significantly lower than his brain to consistently make decisions for him, to the point of hurting the only people who believed in him when even he couldn't? No, he wasn't smart. More like an engineering _idiot-savant_ with emphasis on the 'idiot.' He stopped remembering that he was Charles Tucker at all and that he ever had been. He allowed himself to become lost.

_(break)_

He swore and punched the console. This wasn't happening. The odds that the com system would go down _now…_

_They say it's viral. Just drop out a remote messenger and…_

Alarms began to ring. "Shit!" The commands on the screen in front of him scrambled and turned hot pink on a bright pink background. Somehow the virus managed to get in there, too. He abandoned the station and its glowing accusation. Bad enough that he couldn't communicate, but it would be worse to have Lieutenant Hess find him and break his bones for breaking another part of the computer. If Commander Tucker were in charge, he wouldn't have the same worries. He could deal with Commander Tucker. Lieutenant Hess was a loose cannon without her senior officer keeping her in check. She was even worse now that he was sick. Not only that, but Commander Tucker was a nobody. He could be dealt with, removed if necessary. Hess was too well connected all over the place. If anything happened to her, there would be… ramifications. She was also smarter than Commander Tucker, a genius, actually. _Too smart for her own good._

_(break) _

"Spreading? What do you mean, it's spreading?" Jon forced himself to take a deep breath. "Lieutenant, I don't want to hear…"

"Beacons, torpedoes, shuttles… we can't launch any of them sir. And…" Hess took a deep breath of her own. "And I hope that the computer doesn't figure out that we can use the phase cannons as a signalling system…"

"What?" Jon tore his gaze away from Trip to look over at Hess. "What do you mean…"

"I think this virus is specifically targeting communications methods, Sir. It's trying to hold us incommunicado." Hess shook her head. "I just wish I knew why."

"Right." He had a feeling Trip might know the answer to that. "Keep working, Lieutenant."

"Yes, Sir." She sounded subdued, not at all her normal self, not at all the person to whom Trip had so quickly become attached. Theirs was an odd relationship, Jon realised. She wasn't the type of person Trip normally chose to be friends with and they were closer, in some ways, than they almost could be and still stay platonic. And the attachment _had_ been quick…it was as though Trip fastened himself to her in the first instant they met. He was rabidly defensive of her too, as though he'd found something in her he'd lost and was afraid to lose it again. Even T'Pol hadn't been able to change that, much.

_T…_ Of course. Jon dismissed Hess and quickly hit the comm. What they needed was inside Trip's head… who better to get it out?

_&_

"Captain…" T'Pol stared at Trip, almost nervously for her. Maybe it was the thought of disease, maybe it was something else, but she looked as though she didn't want to touch him.

"I don't recommend this," Phlox agreed. "Commander Tucker's brain patterns are…" he seemed strangely unable to find the words to describe it.

"Doctor, we _need_ to know what's going on. _Enterprise_ is a sitting duck right now. A mind meld…"

"Allow me to rephrase that." A fourth voice entered the conversation, familiar, yet belonging to a stranger. The tone carried more steel than Trip's voice had ever managed, and the accent was heavy enough to slow the words down into a deep, emphatic drawl. Jon stared at the bed, at the apparition that still wasn't conscious but somehow managing to voice his opinion. Trip… but not. "No."

_(break)_

He flicked the lighter in his fingers. On, off. On, off. Light, no light. Fire… potential for fire. Future fire? Past fire? The binary had become unstable, insufficient. The sci-fi writers were wrong. Computers would never rule the world – logic was unable to account for everything. There was never just a one and a two. There was always at least a three.

"Philosopher Bob thinks." He heard a voice beside him but ignored it. _Philosopher Bob_. When did thinking become an undesirable attribute? _When the 'intellectuals' stopped doing real work and started looking down on everybody who does_. It used to be that the craftsman and the tradesman were admired for their skill. Now, it seemed, being able to build something was a sign of stupidity. A man without a university degree was thick-headed, or slow. _Smart_ people went on to higher learning… they didn't do jobs like this.

_But everybody needs to feel superior._ So the tradesmen struck back, labelling thought as something somehow unworthy of a 'real' man. They were afraid of it and the threat it offered. A thinking working man was a misfit now.

Industrialisation probably had a lot to do with it, reducing the need for manpower by replacing it with machines. Would computerisation worsen the problem? _Look at us now._ It was only the eighties and already the new class system had developed and the rebellion was building. _Where will we be in a hundred years?_

He stared down at the polished surface of the lighter and caught a glimpse of something… white lights streaking past on a black background. _Odd_. Odd, but not unusual. Just another glimpse out of time.

"What's the matter, Bobby? Seein' ghosts again?"

He glared at the intruder. "Get lost, Tucker. I'm not interested in you." Bad enough stealing a man's wife, but did you have to make fun of him, too? Why was it that people seemed to think that sort of thing was okay? The worst part was how they'd done it behind his back – she hadn't even had the guts to tell him things were over. _Then again, you'd think I would have noticed._ That was another family attribute, though. Sensitivity to the world, and a total oblivion to things happening around them. _Psychic ain't omnipotent_. If it was… hell, they'd know better than to become psychic.

_Seein' ghosts_. If only that was it… if only that was the total extent of things. He could live with seeing ghosts.

"Tell us the future, man." Once Tucker had hold of a humiliation, he never let it go.

"I don't do that." Bobby tried to keep his temper. Getting violent wouldn't help, not here. Tucker could be violent too, and as much as he hated the man, he wasn't going to hurt him. God, it was tempting though.

Not that Tucker really believed Bobby was psychic, it was just a joke to him, a nasty game of one-upmanship. If Tucker had found that little girl, it would have been brains that was the cause, but Bobby had done the finding, so it couldn't have been smarts, not even for Philosopher Bob. He just had no idea that he'd hit on the truth.

"What's the matter? It only work on Mondays?"

Bobby tried not to think about it, tried not to wonder what would happen if his kid got stuck with this too. No way Tucker would explain it to him – from here on in the truth would be lost in favour of insanity. _Son-of-a-bitch_.

"Allow me to rephrase that. No." As he pushed his way past Tucker, he thought he saw something reflected in one of the upper windows of the firehouse. Just a glimpse, but he could see her clearly. A red-headed, pug-nosed girl stared down at him for a second, then was gone. He could almost swear she'd been pounding on the window, screaming for help.

_What the hell?_


End file.
